Bird diversity-environment relationships in urban parks and cemeteries of the Neotropics during breeding and non-breeding seasons

LUCAS LEVEAU; MARIANA LUCIA BOCELLI; SERGIO GABRIEL QUESADA ACUÑA; CESAR GONZALEZ; PABLO GUTIÉRREZ TAPIA; GABRIELA FRANZOI DRI; CARLOS A. DELGADO-V.; ALVARO GARITANO-ZAVALA; JACKELINE CAMPOS; YANINA BENEDETTI; RUBÉN ORTEGA-ÁLVAREZ; ISAIN CONTRERAS-RODRÍGUEZ; DANIELA SOUZA LÓPEZ; CARLA SUERTEGARAY FONTANA; THAIANE WEINERT DA SILVA; SARAH SANDRI ZALEWSKI VARGAS; MARIA CECÍLIA BARBOSA TOLEDO; JUAN ANDRES SARQUIS; ALEJANDRO GIRAUDO; ADA LILIAN ECHEVARRIA; ELISA FANJUL; MARIA VALERIA MARTÍNEZ; JOSEFINA HAEDO; LUIS GONZALO CANO SANZ; YURI PEÑA; VIVIANA FERNANDEZ; VERÓNICA MARINERO; VINÍCIUS ABILHOA; RAFAEL AMORIN; JUAN FERNANDO ESCOBAR IBÁÑEZ; MARÍA DOLORES JURI; SERGIO CAMÍN; LUIS MARONE; AUGUSTO JOÃO PIRATELLI; LARISSA CRISPIM

PeerJ

PeerJ

Año: 2022

Background: Urbanization will increase in the next decades, causing the loss of greenareas and bird diversity within cities. There is a lack of studies at a continental scaleanalyzing the relation between urban green areas, such as parks and cemeteries, and bird species richness in the Neotropical region. Bird diversity-environment relationsin urban parks and cemeteries may be influenced by latitudinal gradients orspecies-area relationships. However, the seasonal variation of species diversityenvironmenthas not been analyzed at a continental scale in the Neotropics.Methods: Bird surveys were conducted in 36 cemeteries and 37 parks within 18Neotropical cities during non-breeding and breeding seasons. Bird diversity wasassessed through Hill numbers, focusing on species richness, the effective number ofspecies derived from Shannon index and the Simpson index. Environmentalvariables included latitude, altitude, and local scale variables such as area size, habitatdiversity and pedestrian traffic.Results: Species richness was higher during the breeding season, whereas Shannonand Simpson diversity did not vary between seasons. During both seasons, speciesrichness increased with area size, was negatively related to altitude, and was thehighest at 20 latitude. Species richness was also positively related to habitat diversityduring the non-breeding season. Shannon and Simpson diversity showed significantrelationships with habitat diversity and area size during the breeding season. Birddiversity was similar between parks and cemeteries.Discussion: Our results showed that urban parks and cemeteries have similar rolesin conserving urban bird diversity in Neotropical cities. However, species diversityenvironmentrelations at the continental scale varied between seasons, highlightingthe importance of conducting annual studies.